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Wyman's leg lifts KU to last-second win

Kansas' Matthew Wyman kicks a 52-yard field goal in the waning seconds Saturday to give the Jayhawks a 13-10 win against Louisiana Tech.

LAWRENCE — The home team tackled its own kicker.

That’s what it came down to for Kansas football: A last-second, 52-yard boot against Louisiana Tech and a jubilant sprint to its kicker, Matthew Wyman, near midfield.

Michael Cummings got to Wyman first, lifting him in the air, and when the rest of the team came crashing in, Wyman fell from the pile-driving hit.

“I was actually worried I was going to get hurt,” Wyman said.

Yet, it was no time to worry for Kansas, just time to celebrate.

Seconds before the dog pile, Wyman trotted onto the turf at Memorial Stadium, in front of 39,823 KU fans watching to see if the team’s new kicker would deliver a winning record.

“I was just thinking, ‘I do this in practice every day. I can do this. I’m gonna make this kick. I’m gonna drill it,’ ” Wyman said.

As he often does, Wyman visualized the kick floating between the uprights before he took the actual kick. Then he ran to the ball, swung his leg and watched his imagination become reality.

Kansas 13, Louisiana Tech 10.

Wyman turned to the sideline with his arms stretched out, as if he couldn’t believe it himself, screaming to his teammates. Then came the commotion.

“I knew Wyman was going to make that right when he got out there,” KU punter Trevor Pardula said. “So I buckled my helmet up. I knew we were about to celebrate.”

Wyman’s leg — one that got caught under the dog pile — gave the Jayhawks their first win against an FBS school since beating Northern Illinois 45-42 on Sept. 10, 2011. At that point in time, Turner Gill was still in Lawrence, Charlie Weis was in Florida and Wyman was a senior in high school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Back then, Wyman wasn’t really a kicker. He played four games for his high school but hurt his foot. He tried out for KU his freshman year but was cut.

In fact, Wyman remembers sitting in the stands at Memorial Stadium for last year's KU-Rice game, his first as a student. Rice won on a last-second field goal. KU missed two attempts.

“I could do that,” Wyman remembers thinking. “I should be out there.”

After a year of kicking field goals and working on his form, Wyman got his chance, rising up the depth chart to win the job at the beginning of the year.

Saturday provided a moment no kicker can prepare for until he’s faced it, when the game hinges on one kick. One of Charlie Weis’ coaching tactics has helped, though. Occasionally, the Jayhawks end practice with a field goal. If the kicker makes it, practice is over. If he misses, the team has to run.

“There it was today,” Weis said. “That’s what the locker room felt like. It felt like what you want it to feel like on the last play of the game.”

Wyman said one of his teammates — Deron Dangerfield, a senior safety from Overland Park — told him in the second quarter that the game would come down to him.

So Wyman waited, recovering from a missed 28-yard field goal early in the second quarter to make a 29-yard kick later in the quarter. When KU recovered the ball with a little more than a minute left, he kicked two practice kicks into the net and went to cheer his team on.

The roles would soon be reversed.

“I got picked up, they dropped me down and I just kinda fell over,” Wyman said. “Then they piled on top of me.”